


Verge

by ravenlecrawe



Category: Rifts (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Gun Violence, Minor Character Death, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Other, Pansexual Character, Science Fiction, WIP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 01:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14582424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenlecrawe/pseuds/ravenlecrawe
Summary: A story about the rise of Helix, an mysterious elf, into the ranks of the Black Market. Also the background of Max and Helix's partnership. This is a work-in-progress that will be added too as I can. May link to other stories that may or may not (definatly will) be just spin off smut.Based on the current world setting I'm DMing for friends and is going to be canon for the story. Thanks in advance for any feedback.





	Verge

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP, please forgive any errors and typos. If you want to leave feedback to clear them up I'll catch up as soon as possible. Thanks again.

Darting behind a pair of rust-colored rocks before pulling out her stiletto, Helix takes a moment to breathe. Her legs are on fire from running so far, and her helmet’s breather doesn’t filter the smell of death around her. Neon green eyes darting around, she starts to look over the rocks at the carnage left behind the explosions. Pieces of the giant spiders lay scattered about, stinking blue ichor splaying across the ground between them. Her stomach turns when she looks over the twisted metal chunks of the destroyed NG- Gunbot mech, glowing from the nuclear inferno that tore it to pieces just minutes ago.  
Alex, Darrik, and Shale are gone. She’ll never hear Shale’s terrible dad jokes, never feel the comforting embrace of Darrik, and never smell the rosey shampoo her Alex always bought again. Those thoughts ripped through her head like a bullet, and she barely recognizes her own scream as it echoes from her in the now empty canyon. Time loses meaning to her as she falls to the ruddy canyon floor, screaming and sobbing to try an quiet the pain in her chest.  
Catching her wiry frame against the rock and wrenching her eyes open to witness the harsh reality that her brain was fumbling against, Helix forces her body to start again. A constant, increasing ticking in her pointed ears forces her to start moving away from the wreckage. Wearing the Gladiator Environmental Body Armor kept her safe from the momentary burst from the self-destruct, but now a leaking nuclear core is proving too much so the armor’s computer is alerting the wearer of the danger.  
“.....still alive out there?!” A static filled radio signal bursts through her helmet. Tuning automatically to the new signal the second message comes through loud and clear, “Is anyone left alive down there?! Helix? Shale?!” The deep baritone of Max’s robotic voice sends a bolt of hope up Helix’s broken heart. Touching the earpiece on the side of the helmet and looking around she answers, “Max! I’m still here! They overran us and I need pick up now! Please don’t leave me here!” Her voice shaking and changing pitch as her body tries to cope with everything her mind is doing.  
As she waits for an answer she starts to look around the canyon for any landmark or feature. The insanely tall, rust colored walls seem to block out the majority of sunlight. Adding to the lack of visibility was both the billowing ploom of smoke becoming trapped in the tangled webs from the monsters across the width of the gorge. Forty meters up the top of the canyon was far out of sight. “Helix, did anyone else make it? We stopped getting a feedback from the Gunbot when the explosion hit.” Max’s comforting baritone was replaced with the cold voice of Edward.  
“No. T-They didn’t make it. Shale h-he had to blow the core to kill the creatures. It’s gone.” She notices how hard she is gripping the stiletto Max gave her, her thin fingers stretching the micro-mesh fiber of her armor taught against the enchanted leather and metal shaft. “Then the mission is over and we will be heading home. Helix, your contract is hereby terminated.”  
One, two, three heartbeats pass as her mind rails against what she just heard. “What did you just say you fuck!?” Helix finds the steel in her voice as her eyes find a path up the rocky walls. Not waiting to hear the snake-in-human’s reply she sheathes the stiletto and darts toward the wall. “Helix, there is no need for that kind of language. It’s nothing personal, if anything I think we should recover you and sell you to make up some of the difference in the lost robot unit. But that is neither here nor there. Goodbye, girl.”

More than any threat to her life, his snide and disgusting voice lights a fire inside her.  
Jumping up to the rock, and finding a hold she starts to climb as quick as her elven frame allows. Before he finishes his sentence she has already cleared fifteen meters up the wall, and was only gaining speed as her muscles start to ache. Using the webbing from the monstrous spiders to her advantage Helix clears the gathering cloud of smoke and bursts over the top of webs. Lactic build-up in her arms and legs makes them feel like lead weights, but she couldn’t stop now. Twenty more meters down and her heart feels like it is going to explode out of her chest. “I’m sorry I’ll have to pass on those drinks Helix. Adiós, mi zorro.”  
Alex’s words, her thick spanish accent, the golden light reflecting on bronze skin, and the smell of roses rush back to the struggling elf. Her lungs already on fire, she chokes back a scream as she surges over the top of the cliffside. Alerts flicker in the HUD of her armor, warnings of her overworked muscles and dangerous build-up of CO² in her blood, as she stares up at the clear blue sky. Too weak to stand Helix grabs at her belt and rolls over to her knees. Pulling a single-use flare launcher up she looks around for the crew’s Cargonaut hauler or one of the scouts on the hovercycles. Firing the flare over her head she falls back to her knees in exhaustion. A small shape in the distance darts up from the canyon toward somewhat familiar rocks, and then circles around. Coming closer Helix can see the hovercycle and it’s pilot, and her flare goes up toward the blue sky. “You fucks are not leaving me out here to die.” Her voice, now hoarse from the screaming, sounds so strange to her. It hasn’t just gotten hoarse, it’s become harder now. Angry.  
As the cycle lands next to her, she recognizes the pilot as Adam. A human like most the crew he had always been wary of the non-humans like herself and Shale, but never overtly hostile. She can hear his voice without the radios at this distance, “Helix. Put your hands behind your back, boss wants you alive.” On her hands and knees, barely able to breathe she looks up at him in shock. A pair of cuffs in one hand, and the other bearing a sleek black laser pistol as he watches the exhausted elf before helping her onto her stomach with a swift kick.  
Grunts escape her mouth as she reels in shock more than pain, her armor easily absorbing the kick and dispersing it through the bonded ceramic and metal plating. She feels him slap the cuff on one hand, but her free one finds the hilt of her stiletto faster. Rolling into his legs she knocks him onto the ground, his pistol firing wildly in the air before she sits on top of him. Slamming her ass down on his stomach and her blade down at his throat Helix catches a reflection of herself in his visor. Pure rage twists her full lips into a scowl and her once alluring eyes are wide with hate. The hilt sinks into the mesh around his throat while blood splatters the inside of his helmet. The black blade, it’s silver runes untouched by the blood pouring from the wounds, pulls free as she stands over him. Her mind racing, heart pounding, and rage boiling Helix settles on a plan to get away. Dealing with El Oculta, a black market organization native to the south west of the old American Empire, was always a risky prospect. Taking out a member was always a death sentence, so it was either run forever...or take a stand.

 

Standing beside a heavy semi-type truck known as the Cargonaut, in a canvas tent set up as the command post, are three humans. The gusting canyon wind flutters the opening, revealing in glimpses the radio equipment and a folding table with a pinned down map. The midday sun easily illuminating the interior without any of the woven in LED lights being on.  
“Boss, it’s unwise to leave the gear at the bottom of the canyon. If all the creatures have been killed then it’s simple recovery at this point.” Max’s cybernetic voice comes out of the heavily modified Crusader EBA. It’s black mirrored visor and the artificially leveled voice gave no hints to Edward how distressed Max really was. “Max, I understand that you and Helix traveled together before you both joined our family. But this is a business matter, and you will either follow my orders or I’ll sell your pretty pieces for scrap metal. Do you understand me, girl?” To punctuate his point, the human wearing lightweight Huntsman non-environmental armor without his helmet, puts his hand on the beautifully decorated Northern Gun heavy ion pistol.  
“I understand sir.” Her hand flies faster than he was expecting to his face, and a jolt of electricity races across neurons. As he tries to recover from the neuro-mace, she steps forward with another punch. An impossibly loud *BANG* rings out as her forearm rockets forward in a pneumatic explosion, the locked up energy from her cybernetics superheating air in a chamber before expelling it out jet-turbines. Edward didn’t have a chance as his unprotected face takes the impact of a punch that could put a hole in tank armor. Red mist erupts from his neck, the tissues connecting shredding under the force and bits of his head rain backward in the command tent.  
“I just don’t give a damn.” Turning to look at the other Operator, one of the last crew members that started this trek, “Wanting to argue with me as well?” The similarly unarmored human looks on in horror before stammering, “N-n-no, not at all….ma’am?” His question at the end punctuates his arm pointing at the horizon near the canyon. The hovercycle was coming back. Max steps out from under the tent and activates her radio, “Adam, there has been a change of plans.” A heartbeat passes before Helix’s voice comes over, “You bet your ass there has. Where is that son of a bitch?!” Landing next to the tent, Helix has the twin laser turrets underneath the cycle aiming at the tent. Max’s HUD also detects the missile pods are active and locking on.  
“He’s dead Helix. Hubert is the only one left if Adam is dead. It’s ok. It’s over.” her mechanical voice coming from the helmet and not over the radio. She walks forward, hoping Helix was calmed down enough to talk. Max reaches up and takes her helmet off, letting the short raven-black hair dance around her eyes as she looks into Helix’s tear filled emerald pools. She takes the much smaller elf into her arms and slides the magnetic locks off her helmet, letting the blonde locks splay out. Helix looks up into the two holographic blue eyes of Max, and they embrace in silence, knowing full well what the other felt.  
“We still have a shit load of gold to get rid of. Now we have El Oculta on us, and Los Alamo won’t take us back. Max, if you want to I don’t blame you for heading back north somewhere safe.” Helix breaks the embrace and walks over to the remains of Edward, still splayed over the ground. “I’m going to Verge. That place is quiet and I can buy it out with this kinda cash. I...just don’t want you to get hurt because of me.” She looks back at Max, who starts to chuckle. “I’m the one who killed Edward. I’ll go with you Helix, don’t worry. I won’t let you try this crazy shit without me.”  


-Two Years Later -  
“Watch your step, you fat cunt!” Screams a heavily intoxicated man outside the smooth stone walls of a three story building. The neon lights shining in red, gold, and orange from above the group of drunks outside. Six men, mostly human, have gathered around to vent about their days after the bar cut them off, and now their attention is on a startled looking woman standing next to the loudest member of their party. His greasy hair covers his face as he tries to stare at the woman, eyes going from her feet to her large chest. She isn’t the smallest girl, and her brown eyes are wide from the shock as she steps away from the man. “You should make it up to us, since you’ve disturbed our good night. Right boys?” His slurring speech and slight stagger make it obvious why the barkeep cut him off, and that made her afraid of this group of drunks now circling around her.  
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did, but I’m s-s-sorry!” her voice starts as a mutter but ends higher after one of the men looms over her.

The men circle around her laughing as she reaches for her purse, stopped as the one in front of her grabs her wrist. "HELP!" she screams as she feels drunken hands grab at her. A loud crack echoes out as the men start to run, her eyes wince shut in fear before she falls to the warm concrete sidewalk. A smell of smoke and iron fills the air as well as the clamoring of feet away from her. "You gonna be ok miss?" The voice is deep and mechanical, almost like the automated announcements near the docks, and coming from a heavily armored person in front of her. Solid black Crusader armor, reminiscent of a knights armor from ancient times, covered with a dino-leather duster reflects the nightclubs lights. The woman's eyes follow up the boots and chest to the reflective black visor, on top of a stylized smiling lower skull helmet. "I'm ok. Thank you Max." Her voice registers in Max's augmented hearing even though it was barely above a whisper, "Good, and it's no problem. Have a good night." Helping her back up, Max then turns and walks away into the night while putting the still warm pistol back into it's holster across her back.


End file.
